Tips for Mentors on How to Engage Students with School and Learning

With high school dropout rates alarmingly high, our teaching and learning research shows student engagement is a critical element to high school dropout prevention. Last week I shared how the Institute on Community Integration (ICI) at the University of Minnesota’s College of Education and Human Development (CEHD) is helping reduce high school dropout rates and improving lives through Check & Connect. Check & Connect is designed specifically to enhance student engagement at school and with learning through mentorship.

Building a positive, long-term mentor-mentee relationship is a powerful way to change students’ behavior and attitude towards school and learning, which is why Check & Connect requires a mentor commitment of a minimum of two years. Since many students who are referred to Check & Connect don’t have adults that stay in their lives for long, they haven’t learned to count on their relationships with adults. The two-year minimum requirement provides the time necessary for mentors to build trust with students and demonstrate to them that they are not going anywhere – they are the consistent caring adult in a student’s life.

Mentors play a significant role in engaging students in school and preventing dropout. Engaging students academically, behaviorally, cognitively and affectively is essential to improving progress in school. Here are some research-based strategies for mentors that promote student engagement on four levels (adapted from Christenson et al., 2008):

1. Academic

Take advantage of available after-school programs such as tutoring and homework help

3. Cognitive

Illustrate the link between the student’s effort and the outcome achieved to increase the student’s perceived self-control, self-efficacy and self-determination

Encourage parents to provide motivational support for learning at home by talking to students about school and schoolwork, setting high expectations and delivering positive reinforcements

Set learning goals over performance goals that align with classroom and school culture

4. Affective

Build a personal relationship with the student

Intervene early and persistently with issues involving peers, adults, home and community environments to help change the student’s developmental course

Help students with personal problems

Encourage participation in extracurricular activities

Create a caring and supportive environment

Most importantly mentors need to be persistent in reaching out to students, as it often takes time to make a connection and establish trust. Find more tips on what to do when the mentor-mentee relationship is challenging on Check & Connect’s Attend, Engage, Invest blog.

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U.S. News & World Report has issued its annual college rankings, once again recognizing the University of Minnesota’s College of Education and Human Development (CEHD) and its programs as some of the finest in the nation.

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Featured Article

U.S. News & World Report has issued its annual college rankings, once again recognizing the University of Minnesota’s College of Education and Human Development (CEHD) and its programs as some of the finest in the nation.